He would do this for a certain number
of D-bars in payment. This way he had more to eat or to sell for IOU's
to collect later.
The making of the athletic field was a major accomplishment which we
undertook in the early summer. This large area at one end of the
compound was Just the way they had left it after clearing away the
forest. Hundreds of stumps of pine trees in neat rows covered the
entire area. The Germans gave us one ax, a telephone pole and one
guard with a rifle. About two thousand of us each took an empty
powdered milk can and we looked like a colony of ants digging the dirt
away from the stumps and roots. It was sandy soi1 and dug quite
easily. Wt took turns using the ax and cut all the roots from each
stump as fast as we could. Then, with the guard watching us, we put
the telephone pole under each stump and all the guys that could get
onto the pole would Jump on and pry the stump out of the ground. I
don't remember what happened to the stumps, but we had no tools to cut
them up for firewood so the Germans must have hauled them out of camp.
Each man then took a bed slat from his bunk, a board about four inches
wide and three feet long and we used this to level the soft dirt as
there were no rocks. It is amazing that it only took us two days and
there was room enough for a football field and two softball diamonds.
The football field was seldom used but there was always someone
playing softball.
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